WRITING about India generally falls into one of two categories. There is what you might call the classical view, which emphasises the country’s messy democracy, the court intrigue in Delhi, the role of the powerful states, and poverty and religion. And then there is the business-school view, which sees India as a huge potential market that could one day rival China, with a dynamic business scene that is already the world’s eighth-largest, ranked by market capitalisation. James Crabtree’s new book, “The Billionaire Raj”, does the great service of tying these two stories together, showing how India’s political system and its firms are symbiotically connected, in an entertaining—and sometimes disturbing—fashion.

Mr Crabtree is a former Mumbai bureau chief of the Financial Times and his book is full of sharp snapshots from what he calls India’s new gilded age. In the London home of Vijay Mallya, a self-exiled liquor tycoon, Mr Crabtree finds a golden toilet seat and melancholia. He visits the western state of Goa, where mining outfits stripped the earth of iron ore and shipped it to China while tourists frolicked on the beaches. Elsewhere, an Aston Martin is impounded after a mysterious crash.

But Mr Crabtree also makes a muscular argument about the interlinkage of democracy, business and development. The country needs its bosses to marshal capital, build infrastructure and help it industrialise. The bosses need the government for cheap credit and permits. And the politicians—often reluctantly—tap firms for illicit cash, to pay for election campaigns that in total can cost billions of dollars.

Sometimes this arrangement delivers results. In 2004-10 India had the fastest growth spurt in living memory, with GDP rising at close to double-digit rates. A group of tycoons went on an investment binge that expanded the economy’s capacity. But as Mr Crabtree documents, eventually the wheels came off, with accusations of corruption and mounting bad debts. The fallout contributed to the election in 2014 of Narendra Modi, India’s strongman leader, who pushed an agenda of Hindu nationalism, clean government and development.

To illustrate his case, Mr Crabtree provides profiles of businessmen whose sheer ambition, he argues, is vital. Naveen Jindal, a mid-ranking steel magnate noted for his polo-playing and business debts, is transformed into a sympathetic figure; he is depicted in the remote state of Odisha, surrounded by forests, trying to get a steel and power project up and running.

The analysis really sings when Mr Crabtree finds new ways to capture the collision of profits, politics and public opinion. His account of India’s cut-throat network-TV industry, through the eyes of a star presenter, is thrilling. And he explores the paradox of India’s “southern belt” of states, most notably Tamil Nadu, which have their share of charismatic politicians and graft, but are also relatively rich. They have developed an efficient kind of populism, he concludes, in contrast to the purely venal politics farther north.

The book’s main flaw is that it gives a narrow view of the business world. Like Russia and other parts of Asia, India has its politically connected moguls. But it also has what may be the world’s most vibrant tech scene after America and China, a large stock of investment by multinational companies and a cohort of professionally run firms that compete in global markets.

Nonetheless the nexus of business and politics is central to India’s future. Mr Crabtree thinks India needs its own progressive era, like America’s in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, in which the machinery of the state is reformed in order to make markets work better. But he worries that Mr Modi, despite his formidable image and some solid accomplishments, is too cautious to make that happen.

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